Missive #356

John Dos Passos, the distinguished American novelist and historian has been personally interested in Brazil for the last fifteen years. He first visited the country in 1948, and returned again in 1956 and 1962. This book, which is based on his experiences in Brazil, presents the people and landscapes of a young country on the move. Here you will find several extraordinary reports on Brasilia, first in the planning stage, second in the wildly frantic period when it was a half-finished group of buildings, and, finally, as it appeared to Mr. Dos Passos in the summer of 1962 when it was at last beginning to function as a city. Dos Pasos’ nonfiction, especially his travel books, are a pleasure to read. Much better than most of his fiction. This book is dated but some very good history and geography that has not changed since it was published.Here, too, is the story of Brazil’s great road building program designed to unify the country, and of the political battles in this enormous country which totters on the verge of a Communist takeover. From traveling the length and breadth of the land and from interviewing all kinds of politicians like Carlos Lacerda and religious leaders like Bishop Sales, Mr. Dos Passos has been able to transmit some of the flavor of the most important of Latin American nations. Mr. Dos Passos himself is of Portuguese descent, and he speaks Portuguese as well as Spanish. He begins this readable and fascinating book with a much needed short sketch of the history of Brazil and how the Portuguese tradition differs from the Spanish in South America. — Book promo @ Amazon

I got all my month end housecleaning done during the weekend. Today is a rest day to prepare for the drive to my new next camp tomorrow. I’ll also prepare the posting for tomorrow today and schedule it to post while I’m on the road. If something should change I’ll update the posting later on Tuesday or Wednesday.

I have had to change from Word Balloon to Liquid Speech Balloon. WordPress or Word Balloon have updated something where I no longer can select an Avatar from my Media Library and the Free version of Word Balloon has a 5 Avatar restriction. I don’t like this Liquid Speech Balloon plugin as well but the number of Avatars is much greater. The default form offered 10 and I was able to add another so it appears that the number is unlimited.